


the people danced to the sound of your heart (the world sang along to it falling apart)

by gaycloak



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Author is salty, Bisexual Character of Color, Bisexual Male Character, Cisco Ramon Is An Incredibly Powerful Incredibly Cool Meta, Cisco Ramon Needs A Hug, Cisco's Powers, Eventual relationship, Feelings Realisation, Friends to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Multiple Cisco Ramons, Slow Build, THE SHOW IS A LITTLE BITCH BUT IM NOT, every person says this but i am SO BAD AT SUMMARIES, everything i write is a character study, hoo BOY is there ciscos powers, ill update the tags as i go if i need, ralph is so supportive this season and idk how to deal w it so i wrote this, thatll come later ;), the focus is very much on cisco and then ralph but the others are there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-01-23 02:23:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18540367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaycloak/pseuds/gaycloak
Summary: Cisco learns some things, whether he wanted to know them or not. Hopefully, he figures out how to deal.Maybe he'll find something just for him along the way.





	1. let it hurt, let the awful song be heard

**Author's Note:**

> buckle the fuckle up kids its gonna be a bumpy ride
> 
> thanks to [darknessandterrorandkittens](http://darknessandterrorandkittens.tumblr.com/) on tumblr for their lovely beta work

If someone had told him a year ago that Ralph would be an stand-up superhero, an amazing guy, and an even better friend, Cisco would’ve laughed in their face. But. Here he was. 

 

Ralph fucking Dibny. 

 

Or, as he’d taken to calling him, Dibs. 

 

Hey, it was cute. 

 

Cisco loved Barry. Cisco adored Caitlin. Cisco cherished Iris. They were the OG’s. Even Nora had already stolen a place in his heart. But sometimes, he felt like Ralph was the only one that actually  _ got it _ , even just a little. 

 

* * *

 

Caitlin refused to listen to him about his highly reliable, tried and true Old-Creepy-White-Dude alarm going off in his head. Barry backed her up. Barry questioned the validity of his vibes, and even Cisco himself, who did  _ not _ exactly have a history of great self assurance and confidence in his abilities had no idea why. Literally nothing he’d ever seen had been incorrect. Even if they didn’t believe him, surely they wouldn’t go so far as to deny a vibe because it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. 

 

They did. 

 

It hurt. 

 

Cisco saw it. Cisco remembered it. He didn’t say anything. Caitlin’s father had just come back from the dead and promptly turned on her immediately. Or his super villain alter-ego had. Whatever. Barry had had a lifetime of daddy, mommy, whole damn family issues. He got it, really. He understood! This wasn’t the time for I-told-you-so’s. This wasn’t the time for dwelling on things like this, second guessing himself like that was the priority here.  _ Why _ had Cait put so much effort into reassuring him the other day about how valuable he was to the team, Vibe or no, before shooting him down on both counts? He means, she was probably perfectly within her right to do so, it was her dad, but then, what had she meant by it? 

 

He wasn’t going to make a fuss, seriously. Cicada was out there. Now Icicle was too. This was small. 

 

* * *

 

Ralph tried to set him up on a date. 

 

He brought him to a bar, full of badass women,  _ wearing leather _ , and was inadvertently the most inefficient but enthusiastically resolute wingman ever. It was ridiculously endearing. Cisco did end up getting the bartender's number, who was admittedly cute as fuck, but Ralph’s face with his stupid little victory smile was cuter. He wasn’t even smug.

 

They ended up breaching back to Cisco’s apartment and ordering pizza; Cisco then tried to explain the entire original Star Wars trilogy to him whilst an episode or two of The Bachelorette played in the background. Ralph said he liked to watch it to see how many of his former clients and/or friends showed up, and that it appealed to his ‘inner scumbag’, which frankly was brought out in everyone whilst they watched The Bachelorette. That show was like crack, right down to the personality altering side effects. 

 

Cisco, very full of pizza and almost half asleep, accused Ralph of only watching it for the dozens of half naked dudes. He didn’t deny it. Cisco was awake again. 

 

Ralph then suggested sending in The Book of Ralph, because these guys could use it, which prompted a heated debate about the validity of those methods. It was almost enough to bring down Cisco’s racing heartbeat. Almost. 

 

Much too quickly, they reached the end of the night. Which was like 11pm, if he was honest, and they were both  _ wiped, _ because hey, they were both superheroes and that shit took its toll. Or maybe Cisco was just getting on. The grand old age of 27. 

 

Ralph turned to face him as he jumped out of the breach behind him. He smiled. 

 

“Y'know, breaching to your apartment before, and now breaching to mine, you didn’t have a single issue.” 

 

Cisco’s face dropped. God dammit. Why didn’t he have any control over his facial expressions. 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

Ralph jumped back in. 

 

“It’s a good thing! You’ve been feeling… Unsure of your powers lately, right? Part of me taking you to the bar was to try and get you out of your funk, y’know. Because of Cynthia, and the breakup…” 

 

God Cisco wished he hadn’t. He threw up a half smile. Why did he have to  _ care  _ like this. 

 

“No, absolutely. I really appreciate it Ralph.” 

 

He reopened the breach as quickly as possible, pretending not to hear Ralph’s oblivious goodbye. Although,  _ apparently _ he was more observant than he’d given him credit for. Jesus Christ. 

 

For fuck’s sake, why did he have to say that. He really didn’t want to think about his goddamn powers right now. He was so blissfully unaware, just enjoying himself in the moment, until it all came crashing down. Talk about a rude awakening. 

 

He groaned as he realised that Ralph had noticed he was having issues with his powers, connected the dots between a recent traumatic event and, although he was only half right, tried to help him. Without even drawing attention to the issue until the very end. No one had to right to know him that well, thank you very much, and to be that stupidly  _ good _ about it. 

 

Sighing, he picked up his phone, only to find that Iris had text-cornered him, asking him about his date in an incessant and inappropriate manner that he highly enjoyed. Mentions of ‘getting some’ were made. As were mentions of ‘white-girl wasted.’ Cisco told her that they were work colleagues, and that he would be screenshotting this and sending them to HR. Iris replied that she was HR. Cisco awarded her a point, and told her what happened. 

 

‘ _ So you did go on a date. With Ralph. _ ’

 

‘ _ i s2g iris that is NOT what happened’  _

 

_ ‘U sure there buddy?’ _

 

_ ‘iris i have literally done this with you and barry a hundred times. and it has always been platonic’  _

Mostly.

 

‘ _ Whatever u say!! I’m just saying that the Bachelorette is prime date night material. Barry can attest.’  _

 

‘ _ you two are disgustingly married and i want you to know that’  _

 

_ ‘Oh we are aware!”  _

 

This was followed by several winky-face emojis. Cisco almost slapped his forehead like a cartoon character as he realised she was right, but he was not going to admit that to anyone, including himself. He had way too much going on right now to be going on sort-of-dates with his way too clued-in friend. 

 

‘ _ whatever you say! i actually have to get some sleep now in case i have to save the world tomorrow. tell your husband to bring coffee. this is already past my bedtime.’  _

 

_ ‘Okay, old man.’  _

 

Cisco missed the days when he was an insomniac. The humiliation wasn’t worth it. 

 

* * *

 

One day, in the cortex, Barry Allen almost died. No one panicked, because this was Barry’s favourite hobby, actually, and had been happening every week for 5 years. 

 

But Cisco worried anyway.

 

Because his brain was fun like that. 

 

It honestly wasn’t even a close one. They’d literally had to revive his corpse before. They’d brought him back from a pan-dimensional speed prison before. 

 

But apparently, this was the last tiny weight on the tipping scales of Cisco’s sanity. 

 

“Cisco, I’m fine. Really. Caitlin has checked me over,  _ twice _ , and it wasn’t even that serious of an injury to begin with!” Cisco tapped his foot irritably. He was being stupid, but he couldn’t help it. He debated using his powers, because he had had it up to here with all the bullshit they brought with them lately. But, taking a deep breath, he reluctantly spoke. 

 

“Just let me vibe you. Just to check. It won’t even take long.” Barry sighed. 

 

“Okay, man. If you need to.” 

 

He did. These last 5 years had sort of caught up with him. Maybe the cool factor had finally worn off. All he was left with was constant reminders of how close they were to supernatural maiming or worse at any moment and an acute awareness of how much power he held. 

 

He stepped forward, placing his hand on his friends shoulder. He snapped up straight, and the familiar feeling of sinking and flying upwards at the same time overcame him. 

 

Immediately, a riptide tried to suck him out to the endless sea, and, practiced, he fought against it. Barry’s shoulder underneath him split, in 2, in 4, in 8, in 8,192, in 4,194,304. He saw himself, slightly different. He saw himself, spread throughout the multiverse. The blue blinded him.

 

And then he brought it back. 

 

A second hadn’t passed. 

 

A choppy view of Barry and Iris’s loft surrounded him. They were playing a game of Cards Against Humanity with Nora. Nora seemed caught off guard, a hesitant smile on her face, whilst Barry was on the floor laughing. Iris quietly picked up a black card and placed it in a neat pile on her side of the table. Cisco returned to himself, jittery and relieved at the same time. He exhaled, a little shaky. 

 

“You’re fine.” He tried to keep cool. He hated this. 

 

“Told you, dude. You’re worrying for nothing.” 

 

Cisco bit his tongue. Resisted the urge to say that he was worrying for  _ everything _ . Because that’s what was in this room. Everything. 

 

Well, his everything. He’d seen actual everything. Wasn’t what it’s cracked up to be, in his opinion. Very non-linear. Like a bad, too-edgy indie film. 

 

Nora turned back to her journal. Iris turned back to her monitor. Barry turned back to Iris. 

 

Cisco didn’t know how to explain that he’d seen them all die a million times. Awful, gruesome, prolonged deaths. Possibilities here. Realities somewhere. That, every now and then, he needed to check. Needed to hold a hand to Barry’s warm, alive, skin, and disappear into the void to make sure that it wasn’t going to become  _ his  _ reality. 

 

He didn’t know how to explain it, so he didn’t.

 

No one was looking at him anymore, and he had shit to do. He shuffled out of the room, brain as blank as he could manage. 

 

Only Ralph never looked away. Cisco swore he could feel his eyes burning into the back of his head all the way back to his workroom. 


	2. you strap the wing to me, death trap climbed happily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A regular day in Central City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic has the graphic depictions of violence tag now, just in case. (it’s not really graphic.) so make sure to heed that if it bothers you. thanks again to darknessandterrorandkittens on tumblr for their beta work!

Cisco had been laying on his couch, tinkering aimlessly with his laptop and watching netflix when he got the text. It was his day off— not that it actually meant much, in his line of work. The familiar ringtone told him the subject matter before he even had to look.

_Come to STAR- Iris has a lead._

Perfect grammar even in shorthand meant Caitlin. It couldn’t have been that urgent, or the alert would be going off. He considered driving, seeing as he had the time, but decided on breaching anyway. He was still in that half trance-like state that accompanied binge-watching something you’d already seen many times. Jake Peralta froze mid-joke as Cisco paused his TV and held out his fist, yawning as he hopped through the the rip in time and space. This was routine.

Caitlin greeted him. “Have a good nap, bed-head?” He ruffled his hair and stuck out his tongue.

“Excuse me, I could have been napping through dimensions and saving alternate earths in my sleep, Caity.”

She gave him a look. “Have you?”

“Well, no. But I’ll have you know that this carefully curated, _deliberately messy_ style is _au naturel_.”

Their teasing was interrupted by Barry flashing into the room, Iris in tow.

“Hey, what’s up? Nora’s covering for Barry, but we should be fine to handle this one by ourselves.” Iris said, walking over to take her place behind the monitors.

Cisco clapped his hands. “What’ve we got?”

Barry took the lead, slipping into his CSI voice. “You familiar with instagram influencers?” The sentence was so ridiculous and presented in such a serious way that Cisco almost choked on his own spit. Barry grinned, despite his best efforts.

Cisco answered for himself and Caitlin, who looked like she might be in shock, or having a crisis about the current state of the world. Possibly both. “Not particularly, but please, continue. Can’t wait to see where this is going.”

“The CCPD’s been loosely keeping an eye on this one meta for ages, one of the only examples we’ve found of someone who’s open about their powers without a secret identity, and also isn’t a superhero or a criminal. He calls himself—“

Cisco couldn’t help himself. “Hold up. He named himself? Oh, he’s crazy.”

Iris jumped in. “Wait for it.”

“He calls himself Edge Master.”

Cisco laughed. “Oh, he’s _crazy_ crazy.”

Barry continued. “Real name, Steven Dunbar. We’ve never checked in on him before, because he’s never shown criminal intent..”

“...Until now.” Iris finished.

Caitlin frowned. “What’s he done?”

“Lemme guess— reopened a Myspace account?” Cisco joked.

“Broke into an old people’s home and stabbed a couple of old ladies.”

“That’s decidedly less fun, Iris. Why didn’t you lead with that?!”

“According to his own Insta stories, his powers involve being able to curve any object he throws, and greatly extend its momentum. He deals in throwing knives.”

This time it was Caitlin who had to interrupt. “His name is a _knife pun_?” Iris nodded solemnly.

Cisco stood. “This guy sounds delightful. We going after him?”

Iris nodded. “He’s still on the run after the nursing home. We figured you could vibe him before he gets too far.”

Cisco gritted his teeth. “I _better_ not see any old lady stabbing, Iris West-Allen. Or you’re paying for therapy.”

Barry stepped forward, rolling his eyes. “Glad you’re in. We don’t have a tactile trigger,” he pressed something on his phone and held it up, “But hopefully this should be enough.”

The man on the phone was tall and weedy, with thick brown hair that stuck up at all angles. His voice was high and thin in a way that grated on Cisco like he was a goddamn piece of cheese. People followed this dude?

His vitriol was interrupted just as the 15 second video reached its end. He gasped.

The voice that was already giving him a headache filled his brain to bursting before disappearing altogether. Short but thin fingers grasped a knife handle, which quickly thudded into someone’s back. Cisco flinched. At least his victim didn’t seem to be a senior, which was some consolation. He took a deep breath and steadied himself. The vibe began to zoom out, smooth the edges, polish the rough sides. He took in as much as he can. The clock tower on 5th was in the corner, confirming a location. He glanced at the time, checking that they were indeed in the present, sighing in relief as he was proven correct. One of his easier vibes, then. Thank god.

He clambered back into his body, taking a moment to settle in before opening his eyes.

“He’s near the clock tower on 5th. Who’s going?”

Barry glanced at Iris. “I was just gonna speed in, but it can’t hurt to bring backup. Wanna come with?”

Cisco shrugged. May as well. He was already involved and it’s not like he had anything better to do.

“You know this is my usual Wednesday afternoon, Bar,” (It’s funny because it’s true!) “How can I resist.”  
He slipped into the bathroom to yank on his gear and emerged as quickly as possible, to where Barry was waiting. He fastened his gauntlets properly as Barry pulled his hair out from his collar.

“You ready?”

He opened a breach in response.

On the other side, an ATM lay busted open on the ground. A few policemen lay moaning on the ground, blood seeping from their shoulder or concerningly, their stomach.

“Mierda.” He muttered. Barry sped off a couple of times, and they disappeared. “Hospital.” Barry quickly confirmed.

Cisco looked around. “Where’s he at? Wanna check the perimeter?” Barry nodded in response, but a screech interrupted them before he had the chance to act.

“I’m right here, goody two shoes!” A figure appeared from around the corner, and on instinct he opened a breach to a dozen feet behind him, which was lucky, as something sharp whizzed past him at that very moment. He glanced behind him to see a small but very sharp looking knife embedded in the shopfront. Barry had dodged, but the knives were redirected toward him again, so he simply caught them and dropped them to the ground.

“So he was totally waiting for us to arrive so he could do that, right?”

“Oh, totally.” Barry replied, before stepping forward.

“Edge Master!” he paused briefly, cringing. Edge Master, on the other hand, seemed delighted to be addressed as such. He stepped forward to meet The Flash, stumbling over a rock and tripping on the way. He dusted himself off like nothing had happened.

“Flash! Vibe! A pleasure!”

“What do you want!”

“Oh nothing much. Just to have my fun.”

Cisco chipped in. “Pretty weird idea of fun you got here, buddy.”

He sighed. “You would think that, Vibe. But I’ve seen things. The internet is a scary place! It warps your point of view, changes it. This _is_ the only way I can have fun anymore!” He seemed to think this was a genuinely moving story.

Cisco did not. And he was sure his face showed it.

“Barry, you owe me five bucks. What did I say about self-namers?”

Barry smiled. “Absolutely nuts.” Then he turned back to Edge Master to reply.

“You deserve jail time for that sob story alone, dude! Just say you like violence and move on.”

The knife wielder shrugged.

“Y'know what? That works for me!” Something nicked Cisco’s ear, and suddenly he was a few feet to the left. Barry was holding a slightly blood stained knife. Ok, now he was mad.

“Hey asshole!” He yelled, grabbing Edge Master’s attention for a second. It was enough for Barry to punch him in his direction. He fired a blast that knocked him back into a wall. “That shit _stings_.”

Barry came at him with some cuffs, but very nearly got stabbed in the back by a knife that came at him from behind. How that boy ever managed without super speed, Cisco will never know.

It continued like this for a solid minute, a seemingly endless barrage of projectiles keeping Barry busy, until Cisco noticed a civilian trying to sneak to his car. He tried to discreetly breach him to safety, but the guy kept jumping back. He had to yell when he wasn’t paying attention, too busy sneaking past Edge Master, and almost fell in an exposed manhole. He shrunk back, praying he hadn’t drawn attention to himself, but it was too late; his eye was caught.

“¡Dios Mío!” He breathed, scrambling to open a breach. He jumped out directly in front of the idiot civilian, but time seemed to slow down.

Cisco was looking at himself from afar. He watched as his feet touched the ground, backlit by swirling blue. Something shiny flew towards him, blurred.

Into his neck.

The blue light caught spectacularly on a fountain of blood.

Because as usual in Team Flash, extraordinary things seemed so mundane and run of the mill. Right up until they weren’t.

 

* * *

 

Cisco regained consciousness.

Which was a shock in of itself.

He forced his eyes open, lids heavy and darkness comforting. Fluorescent lights greeted him unpleasantly. He was in STAR labs, in the med bay. Which made sense, because he felt like he’d been cooked, frozen, and reheated. His whole body ached and his head was throbbing, his limbs felt like they were made of stone.

Shit.

He was _alive_.

This was wild.

Just then, Caitlin entered the room. The click clack of her low heels bounced around his skull. She spoke softly.

“Cisco! You’re awake, good. You’ve been out a few hours now.”

“A few hours— Is Barry okay? Did he get that asshole?”

Caitlin was checking something in his arm. “He’s fine. And yes, he’s in police custody now. Only one of the people he stabbed died, although a couple are in critical condition. How are you feeling?”

Cisco groaned. “Like ass.”

Caitlin chuckled lightly. “Unsurprising. The knife nicked your femoral artery; you lost like 30% of your blood. If we didn’t have a speedster to get you back here, ASAP, you’d be very dead. Luckily, we do, and you should be fine. I had to…”

Caitlin kept talking, but Cisco just wasn’t taking in the words. His focus was shot and he was too busy trying to take in their conversation. One detail stood out to him.

“Did you say my femoral artery was nicked? Like, my leg?”

Caitlin paused, looking him over. “That’s the one.”

“But, I could’ve sworn—“

Unconsciously, his hand had traveled down to his leg to check and he let out a sound that could only be described as a yelp as he found the wound. Caitlin jumped up. He inhaled sharply.

“Fuck. Ow. Yeah, okay.”

Caitlin frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem fine, but I can check you over again if—“

“No, really,” He tried to reassure her, brushing it off, “Must’ve just been from, y’know. Deflating like a water balloon. I imagine that’s how blood loss works, right?” She smiled, but still seemed concerned.

Cisco patted his non-injured leg. “I’ll tell you what’s not fine, though— That was my last pair of perfectly tailored leather pants, and now they’ve got a massive hole in them. Absolutely ruined.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you’re fine.”

He slumped back down into the cot, feeling slightly delirious, just as the door swung open and wind flew into the room. Barry was here.

“Dude! You’re alive! How are you?”

Cisco pushed his sweaty hair back from his face, huffing. “About as well as you could expect.”

Barry put his hand behind his head. He was still in his Flash get up, which harboured a few small slices, though the cuts underneath them were long gone. He would have to patch those up later.

“Sorry I didn’t see that civilian, man. Edge Master was keeping me busy. Deliberately, I’d say.”

Cisco snapped back to attention as best he could. “Hey, it’s not your fault. Plus, you brought me back here and still got him. Guess that’s why you always bring backup, right?”

Barry shrugged and smiled a little. “Must’ve sucked though, right? Almost getting stabbed in the dick.”

Cisco laughed, even though it hurt to, caught off guard. Barry was grinning now.

“I mean, what a way to go that would’ve been.”

“I can see my obituary now. ‘Vibe, young vigilante, bled out from severed penis. Gone too soon.’” Barry was cackling. Cisco guessed a slightly morbid sense of humour kind of came with the territory. That had reminded him-

“Hey, where’s the rest of the team?”

“Oh Nora’s out with Joe and Cecile, she checked in earlier. Iris is working. Ralph was in here cracking jokes and annoying Caitlin-“ Cisco’s stomach lurched as he recognised Ralph’s ‘worried’ behaviour, “- and then he started melting. Literally, it was gross. So I sent him out to do some damage control, god knows how effective _that’ll_ be, you know him. Not exactly his forte. Oh wait, he’ll wanna know you’re okay. I’ll go get him.” And he was gone.

Cisco, who had only just caught up with Barry’s fast words with his blood-loss-affected brain, was left with approximately two seconds to compose himself. Also, he’d only just fully comprehended that he wasn’t wearing pants, because this really needed to be as awkward as possible.

Suddenly, Ralph was there. Looking every bit as disheveled as Cisco felt. And no doubt looked as well, actually. Caitlin, who was off in the corner doing something important like making sure his life stayed saved, gave Barry a disapproving stare. Cisco thought he caught Barry mouth ‘What?!’ back to her before he sped over to talk properly.

Ralph rocked about on his feet whilst Cisco tried to fight the quickly settling haze in his brain. Why do hard drugs when you can just get stabbed in the thigh, apparently.

Ralph spoke. “So. That was a lot of blood, huh.” He sounded anxious.  
  
“Total blood fountain.” Cisco agreed.

Ralph smiled hesitantly. “A real Apocalypse Now moment.”

Cisco let himself go completely limp and put on his best rasp. “The horror… The horror!”

Ralph’s smile widened. “Pretty sure that line is supposed to come off a little more ‘the heinous realities of war’ and a little less “camp gay guy,’ but you do you.”

Cisco gasped in mock hurt. “How _dare_ you!” It kind of lost its intended effect, however, as the ‘you’ was punctuated by a gasp. The pain was really seeping in now and he probably needed to rest again.

Ralph hovered, clearly seeing what was going on but not wanting to leave, unsure of what to do. Cisco was quickly losing his filter.

“Oh, just get in here already, you idiot. I’m tired.” With great effort, he lifted his arms over his head. Ralph, looking very alarmed, came down to meet him.

Cisco was immediately lost in the hug. Ralph was very soft, and seemed to mould to his body perfectly, even at this awkward angle. He smelled nice, too. He was warm. So warm. A little too warm actually. Or maybe that was Cisco as well. His brain seemed to have caught up to his decision making, finally, because _what the actual fuck_ , he was _embracing_ Ralph. So tenderly. He pulled back, already thinking of how he could blame this on his injury, or surely he was on a painkiller, but no words were coming out of his mouth. Ralph made eye contact and was approximately the colour of a stop sign.

Just then, Caitlin walked over and offered him a glass of water, which he buried his face in very quickly. She ushered Ralph out along with Barry, announcing that he should sleep again soon. She gave him a pointed look as he shifted onto his side, trying to get comfortable.

“Saved by the bell, Cisco.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment or hit me up on tumblr at trans-cisco

**Author's Note:**

> i dont have any money but just know if you comment i am spiritually paying you. come yell at me on tumblr @ trans-cisco


End file.
